The following images were taken with a final production Nikon D3x fitted with the Nikkor AF-S 14-24mm f2.8 and Nikkor AF-S 50mm f1.4G lenses.
As a full-frame body, the effective field of view has not been reduced. The D3x was set to RAW for these samples, with Auto White Balance and the default Standard Picture Control, Normal High ISO NR and Active D-Lighting switched off. The images were processed using Nikon Capture NX 2.2.0 using the default settings.

The crops are taken from the original files, reproduced at 100% and saved in
Adobe Photoshop CS4 as JPEGs with the default Very High quality preset, while
the resized images were made in Photoshop CS4 and saved with the default High
quality preset. The three crops are typically taken from far left, central and
far right portions of each image.

This first shot was taken with the D3x at its base sensitivity of 100 ISO and under bright conditions – as such it represents a best-case scenario. We zoomed the 14-24mm to its 24mm focal length.

The crops, as you’d expect, are clean and packed with fine detail. As we saw in the results pages, the default settings for RAW conversions in Capture NX err on side of restraint, so there’s room for boosting the sharpening if desired. The lens is also performing very well, sharp to the corners of even a full-frame body.

In this second shot we've kept the D3x at its base sensitivity of 100 ISO and the lens zoomed-into 24mm. Again the bright conditions should yield decent results and once again the D3x doesn’t disappoint, delivering an image packed with fine detail that the lens keeps sharp right up the edges.

We shot this at a very low angle, and while the D3x’s screen and viewfinder are excellent, a flip-out monitor would have made life easier.

We normally shoot the steamship approaching, but annual repairs forced a shot of it in dock. As usual though we’ve increased the sensitivity to 200 ISO while also switching to the AF-S 50mm f1.4G for a closer view.

The doubling of the sensitivity hasn’t had any negative impact and once again the crops are clean and packed with detail. The latest Nikkor 50mm prime is also performing well here, albeit stopped-down to f11.

Our second indoor shot was taken with the D3x’s sensitivity increased to 800 ISO. As above the D3x wanted to use the maximum aperture in Program mode, so we switched to f4 in Aperture Priority to achieve a slightly greater depth-of-field.

As also seen in our High ISO Noise results pages, there’s a slight increase in noise levels, but again the textures are very fine and pretty discreet. The lower resolution D700 manages a slightly cleaner result though.

Our final indoor shot was again taken with the 14-24mm at 24mm, but this time with the D3x’s sensitivity increased to 1600 ISO.

The noise textures are now quite visible when viewed at 100%, especially in shadow areas, but again the grain is very fine, avoiding the undesirable electronic-looking artefacts of rival models at high sensitivities. Again the lower resolution D700 has a slight edge, but it’s still a very usable sensitivity for the D3x. See this scene at all sensitivities in our D3x High ISO results page.

All words, images, videos and layout, copyright 2005-2015 Gordon Laing. May not be used without permission.